One Last Kindness
by i-prefer-the-term-antihero
Summary: "Slight prompt/AU. Vlad arriving to the village earlier than in canon. Though is it early enough to save Lisa?"


**Notes:**

This was written for a prompt for the Castlevania Netflix Series on tumblr! You can see the original post here on my blog antihero-writings!

And feel free to drop by my blog and give me some more prompts if you like! (I work best with broad prompts like this one, though I usually take a long time to write something)! Or just to say hi!

If anyone is wondering what the whole "What is a man?" thing is about, it's a reference to the games! Here's the link to the hilarous original scene!

If anyone listens to music while reading, Within Temptation is a perfect band for this fic (and fandom really)! I could make a playlist but I'm not sure anyone listens to the songs i put on here XD and pretty much any song from theirs works.

Bonus points to anyone who catches the Firefly reference!

Warning: this fic contains swearing  
(I'm guessing that's not the least bit of a problem for Castlevania fans XD, but I don't usually put swearing in my fics, and you can never be too careful!)

* * *

_What is a man?_

If there are stupid questions in the classroom of life, that must qualify as one. Too simple, too crass. For…surely we must know by now. Even those of us who aren't human are around them enough—(and 'enough' is too much)—to come up with some sort of answer.

Despite all this, this question, perhaps the single question whose answer must come easiest to our lips—muscle memory instead of something to think about—is one even those who are human find difficulty in answering. So simple it's complicated, like saying the the answer to a another question: _"I'm not okay."_ Too many facets, too many reflections cast on the wall by a single gemstone.

Vlad finds himself asking that question more often than he should.

Dracula was a man once. And maybe that means he ought to know the answer. But when you live long enough as something slightly to the left of human—not far, but removed enough to scorn humanity and their faults as something _other_—you tend to forget that fact. You tend to forget that you were one of them once. You tend to forget the answer to that question.

He tried to. Remember, that is. He actively tried to remember the answer. Or come up with a new one.

Because of her. Because Lisa wanted him to.

She told him she would teach him how to be human again. Love a woman. Raise a child. Travel the world. She'd take this thing, dark, and monstrous, and extraordinary, and make him mortal. Make him see the answer in the faceless mirrors. She would change that label into conversation, until that question, its answer, rested comfortably in his quiet mind.

That's what he's been doing. Loving her. As a man. Putting her picture upon his castle's walls. Staying in a little cottage by the creek. Raising a child. As a man. Bouncing him on his knee. Teaching him all he knows. Traveling the world. As a man. Asking to be invited. Wearing simple cloaks instead of royal robes. Curbing a thirst, a disdain, that once drove his every action into refined honor.

_As a man_. That phrase was once so soft, now rumbles low in the back of his mind, an incessant humming that increased in volume until it was loud enough, constant enough to make anyone mad.

That question, the answer, was clearing, pond stagnance into a river's clear tones, slowly—(everything was slow with them, wasn't it?)—and he could almost see the answer on the river floor.

But when he walks into the village of Lupu, expecting to return home, like a soldier from his own personal war, to a quaint cottage, a beautiful wife, whose face he hasn't seen in far too long, and a son who has grown far too much in the time he was away…and finds a few drops of blood and a pile of charcoal—

A rock is thrown into the water, making those years of clarity murky again, and he forgets there was ever anything human in him.

...Either that, or he remembers far too well.

And everything that clouded his eyes before flares up with a vengeance, turning his gaze red once again.

"Where happened?" his voice burns in his throat, this question, and the other, rotting his lungs, his heart, "Where is my wife?"

"Ohh." The woman's voice is feeble, like a wisp of the smoke surrounding them, "The Bishop took her. Witchcraft, he said. They're burning her at the stake." He doesn't like how she says it like it's already done, already too late. "She was good to me, your wife. A good doctor. It's not right what happened."

"Where are they holding her?" his hair falls across his eyes, "The Cathedral?"

"Oh. Oh, no, sir. They'll be burning her now." The woman's voice is far too gentle to say a truth so violent.

"What?" The word is thrown onto the ground.

"I couldn't be there. I don't care what they say. I wont take joy in that woman being killed by the Church. I'm here remembering her instead."

_What is a man?_

So long Dracula has spent trying to understand them, to live like them, be like them, for her. He traveled, and didn't use magic to move or communicate, because she didn't want him to go into this halfheartedly.

And now he returns to her, and finds that they, the people she loved, who she tried to heal and save, they _took_ her, like interrupting him before the end of a sentence.

Dracula isn't one for wanton emotion, but the sorrow and anger burns in his eyes, and red clouds his vision.

"She said to me, if you would love me as a man, then live as a man. Travel as a man."

"She said you were traveling."

"I was." He looked at his hands, at the ring she gave him, "The way men do. Slowly." He says the word like the idea is an insult to him, the next two words his defense, his battle against it, digging his nails into his palm. "No more."

_What is a man?_

What is this woman? What is she to him but a quavering voice that he could all-too-easily break? What is she to him that he should deem her life worth something?

No. _She is someone who is kind,_ says something in the back of his brain. _She is someone who didn't stand and watch. Who protested in the only way she knew how. She is someone who knew Lisa, and honored Lisa, and for that she ought not be punished._ As the rest of his mind, the rest of his body, burns in an undead fire of _kill, kill, kill them, kill them all_, that other part of him says _She is someone worth saving. _

So he does. One last kindness in her name.

And, as he teleports in a flash of flames, with little regard for the flowers she left, he is a vampire again. After all those years of walking he does not walk those last steps to his castle. He trades the clothing of kind words for the garb of contempt again. After all those years of fasting from murder's nectar, he is ready to raid their skins and pillage their blood.

"What the fu—! Father!" There's someone else here, a man—well, not fully, he is half-vampire too, on his father's side—who was previously reading in the chair.

Dracula motions for the mirror shards on the floor to raise themselves, giving no sign that he even noticed his son.

"You've returned!" Alucard stands, a little haphazardly, pushing back his hair, muttering, "I would have appreciated some warning…But I'm—!"

He stops himself, his eyes flashing, gold tinted with fear.

This is no ordinary mirror; its image is not the room in reverse. It is a cracked, silver lens, and Alucard sees within its glass a crowd of humans, all around a sort of altar, shouting, raising bitter fists around a pile of wood—one piece higher than the rest, like another hand lifted in a plea for mercy—and _is this what hell looks like?_—worshipping a single word, the color orange, and the smell of smoke.

And in the center of it all, tied to that drifted piece of wood, is a woman, a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, like a gold piece glinting amongst the river sludge. A woman who is _different_ from them—and perhaps they are killing for it.

And they _are_ killing her.

They are tossing wood onto those flames, egging it to reach up and grab her.

The same woman who held Adrian when he scraped his knees, and kissed him goodnight, and told him of the world out there, and how it wasn't so bad, in fact it was quite good, and the people were the best part.

They are killing his mother.

_"That isn't—?!"_ The words are little more than a gasp for air.

His father doesn't answer, as if there are none left in him anymore, but when he steps into the mirror the look in his eyes—like a soldier going back into war—is enough to make Adrian follow.

With a single step the atmosphere shifts; the cozy warmth of the tame fire becoming a fetid heat that could suffocate you if you sat in it in long enough, the smell of smoke and something…_cooking_ enough to make anyone with a sense of right and wrong feel sick, the quiet air of the study shredded with a single word:

_"Witch." _

Like that word—that name, that truth, that lie— is enough to damn her.

The fire is not the creature it was in the study, curled up quietly behind bars, providing warmth to the space. They let it loose for the beast it is when allowed to gorge itself, and that warmth, once so inviting, has become something hot enough to bite. To kill.

Like too many things, something calm has become mad at the sound of a human's voice; something tender a weapon in human hands.

They're _burning_ her.

Oh God—and it is God they're doing this for, or at least they _think_ they are—they're burning her. They're _burning_ her. They're burning his wife. They're _burning my wife! _

Bloodthirst is an all-too familiar friend to the vampire king, but this is different. Different in them. Different in him.

In them it is a sick thing. Some sort of red lunacy. That word _"witch"_ is laced; a drug that makes them less sane the more they shout it, turning them from intelligent beings with some sense of propriety into things that would eat their own children if given the chance. Severing their tongues, sharpening their teeth, infesting their mouths, rotting their eyes, wriggling in and out of their ears, corroding their faces into the form of beasts, ghouls and demons. They are far more undead than the king of vampires ever was.

In him, before, it was hunger, instinct. A single string in an undead thing. This is alive. This is not some out-of-his-control link, tying a lifeless toy to its animator. This comes from within. It rushes through him like a well-timed-lightning strike; like love, like rage. This is _hurt-them-like-they-hurt-me, like-they're-hurting-her_. This is more than just wanting to drink blood; he wants to _see them bleed_. He wants to stain their oh-so-holy ground with the sins that would send them to beneath it. To dye their pious sky the color of heresy.

_What is a man? _

It's been a long time. A long time since he's killed. Killing was an exotic pet—admirable to own, but formidable to control—which he gave up for adoption, for someone who could better care for, tame it. A cause he no longer believed in. A game he hit quit on.

It's been a long time, a long time since he viewed men and women as merely blood to be spilled.

It's been a long time since that field of skeletons choking on stakes.

The Vlad of today—or, at least, a few hours ago—was different. He knew that those bones were people, once. That they had souls, and only the most bloodthirsty of humans deserved to have those souls stolen by a stake. Now that he had a family, he knew what he had taken those bloody bones away from.

He gave up the malice for her. Because of her the word 'massacre' didn't flutter so dulcetly upon his ears. She cleared the red from his eyes. She's the one who taught him to walk again—as she did with their son. She's the one who told him that peasants with knowledge would be something more; not a lost cause, a beast to be put down, but something that could do some good. That there was something deep beneath their skin worth saving…just like him.

The other vampires may view them as livestock, but they're not animals. They have dreams and brains, and hearts, and _they are capable of being better than this._

And that's what makes this so damn _sick._

Now…now she is not by his side. She is up there, with her hands behind her back, and the color orange desecrating all the other hues on the canvas that is her life, and they're all _sitting there watching_ like some macabre stage show…not a single one of them standing up to say _"No. No we won't behave like animals anymore."_ And the things he did with and for and because of her he can't remember, blocked off by the barrier of blood between her and him.

Well, if they are going to act like animals—

if they are going to stand and _watch_his wife—the woman who he lie in the grass and counted the stars with, who made them cookies, and who he could never beat at chess—_burn_—

If they're going to sit here and shout to the Lord while her hands, which wrapped around him so gently, turn red, then black, char—

Her lips, which kissed his cheek, crack and bleed and break—

Her voice, which raised at him, then fell quietly that on his ears, which spoke so passionately about medicine, rip until it didn't work anymore—

Her heart, which was always for this creatures, which was bigger than all their evil, melt—

Her soul—she has one too, you know, she didn't sell it or anything—get devoured by their insolence, like she isn't one of them—

Then he's going to _treat_ them like animals.

"_Father_—!" Adrian's voice is dull in the back of his mind, like his own conscience and all its foolish wisdom.

Alucard probably thinks they can do this quietly. They can talk it out with the beasts. They can explain that she isn't a witch, and there's no need for burning. That they will be able to untie her and take her home safely, and no one has to die. That he can unfork their tongues. That he can unravel the thirst from their mouths, the insanity from their brains.

_What is a man?_

But Dracula, Dracula knows what they are. They are mongrels. They are demons. And what's the use trying to talk to a thing that can only grunt back? What's the use speaking of heaven to a thing with hell woven behind its eyes?

He forgot how sweet death tasted.

And the moon, once a quiet guide of their stargazing, is a fuming guard on his side. He takes their royal blue night in his grasp and wrings its neck—with nothing more than a thought—its blood poured out until their sky, their earth, their eyes fill with the color he sees everything in.

It doesn't take long before screams cut that ignorant word from the air. Until they fall like dominoes, one after the other in this game of life with no winners or losers, only destined to come crashing down.

Dracula doesn't catch sight of their faces, doesn't remember that they are individuals, and have souls. He forsakes the part of him that says _worth saving, worth saving, worth saving_ for the thing on his shoulder chanting _kill, kill, kill_. He knows only the taste of iron, the sound of their hearts breaking, the smell of meat and charcoal, the feeling of flesh breaking beneath his nails, hearts still beating in his dripping fingers, the warmth of blood on his skin, his tongue.

_"NO!"_

Then there is another voice. And this voice does not belong to the faceless horde. This voice that sounds like sunlight feels, but which is weathering beneath the elements.

_"No! Please…don't do this! Don't hurt them! Don't kill them!"_

And something, something comes rushing back to him. Decorating the castle for Christmas. Her head on his shoulder as she sat with him by fire, hiding out from the cold. Her laying in bed, draped in light, a boy with her golden hair, and his features laying his head on her shoulder as she read to him. Her kissing Adrian goodnight with a smile and a lullaby—

_Don't say goodnight just yet._

And the sound of that voice makes the blood taste sour. Makes the flesh feel too soft, the bones harder to break. Makes the cries sink teeth into his ears. Slices the moment, turning the sky-light blue again. Makes him freeze, not with the cold; but with the warmth the blood made him feel. And her name is barely a breath in his mouth, more like the beat of his heart…more like _every_ breath.

No. Not this. Not here. Not now, when Lisa—when his sun and stars and _to-the-moon-and-back_—is watching.

_"Mother!"_ their son has strength, virtue enough to speak in the face of her voice, and in a flash of red he is on the altar near her.

Her husband follows, a growl and a blink and he is beside their reason for coming here.

As Adrian goes to cut his mother down. Dracula turns to the surrounding humans, looking like vultures surrounding a corpse, waiting to feast on death.

"I am Vlad Dracula Tepes," he magically magnifies his voice, "and you will tell me why this thing is happening to my wife."

"Oh no! Oh God, Dracula! He was supposed to be a myth!" The mayor says like this was some grand cat's-out-of-the-bag moment, "A story made up by heretics!

"She…she's a witch." The man, the one who started this all, speaks.

He is old and balding, wearing the red and gold that said he presided over holy things, his features set like he judged people so much it changed the shape of his face, making it impossible for him to smile without it looking like a twisted thing.

_What is a man?_

Well, the vampire king knows what _this_ man is. He doesn't need a second's consideration to know what kind of demon he is dealing with. That he's the kind of creature who condemns virtuous men, twists the minds of children, and burns women, for fun, and thinks that his ego and his God are the same thing.

"Lisa Tepes is a woman of science, and the one thing that justifies humanity's stench upon this planet."

"You are not real." He says like he can bend existence to his will, like if he just says it enough the demons will suddenly disappear. "You are a _fiction_ that justified the practice of black magic!"

"A fiction?!" the words blazed on his tongue, "You take my wife and deny I even exist!" he digs his nails into his palm, breaking the skin, his pain the only thing keeping from disobeying his wife and digging those nails straight through this man's chest—(it will all be okay when they return home, he tells himself)—"Tell me, do I seem so fictional now?" He grabs his cloak, holding it up, shooting a wall of fireballs towards them, the orange beast changing allegiance, turning from his wife's side to gorge itself on the one who set it.

Many bystanders scream, leap out of the way. Windows of nearby buildings shatter, the flames scooping up their innards. The mayor grabs the priest and pulls him away just in time, just; the fire snatches his robes, and he indignantly stamps it out.

Vlad now returns his gaze to his family and sees Adrian talking to Lisa…._talking_ not acting, just talking, like she isn't going to _burn_ if she remains there.

With teeth bared slightly he raises his claw to cut her rope.

"No…don't…" Lisa interrupts him, coughing, "If my death can save others…"

His eyes widen. "I'm not leaving you." His voice is low and irrefutable.

"And I'm not letting you—kill any more of these people."

"Well?!" The bishop stands, looking at the mayor as if he ought to be doing something, then at Dracula like his existence is more of a great offense to him than an actual threat.

The mayor looks at him, then at Dracula in the way he should: knowing full well what sort of threat a thing with a taste for human blood poses to those who tried to kill his wife.

The bishop closes his eyes, taking out a cross, holding it in front of him "_In nomine Patris et Filii_…God—"

Vlad teleports before the man-of-something-other-than-God, his cloak dancing in the wind, his eyes red sparks as he stalks his praying prey.

"'God…'? You say your God is one of love, then proceed burn an innocent woman in His name? Either you have a very poor God, or you are a very poor follower. Regardless, I'd like to see what He thinks of you." He raises a claw, forgetting for a moment his wife's command in the face of all this red, about to send it slashing through this man's chest.

But someone grabs his arm. He's about to rip the hand off when he realizes it's not one of the priest's dogs, but that of his own son. The look in Adrian's eyes is far too similar to those Lisa gave him when she chastised him…he never understood how something so gentle could be so hard to oppose.

"Father."

Dracula slowly begins to lower his hand.

But the clergyman does not fall on his knees in a heap of _thank-you_s and _I'm-sorry_s; does not look upon the vampire's son as someone he owes a great debt for deeming his life worth sparing. His lips aren't capable of admitting such things anymore. His eyes are as beastly as the fire reflected within them, gorging themselves on every scrap of sin they can find. That arrogant gaze falls again upon his wife—Alucard has to keep his father from ripping them out just for looking at her—and his words are, low, horrified, laced with the same drug he put in everyone else's mouths;

"You...You _lie_ with the devil?!" Then question becomes condemnation, and he says like Dracula, and not he, is the simpering worm, "How utterly _vile._"

Alucard's eye twitches.

"The situation is far worse than we thought," his knuckles turn white around the cross, "This woman is more than a mere witch. She is the wife of a devil and the mother of a demonspawn!" he jerks his head to the mayor, indignance fused into his irises, "What are you waiting for?!"

Dracula tries to raise his talon again but his son steps in front of him and grabs his other arm, digging his boots into the dirt as he struggles to hold him back, every indication in his eye demanding _let me talk to them._

Dracula loses the staring contest.

The fire reflected in the Mayor's gaze has gotten out of hand. He vaguely motions to the men around him—who look like they're about to piss in their pants—to do something.

"Don't worry, I won't kill you." The vampire king brings his hand to his face, letting the blood drip down it and drain onto his tongue, "I'll make sure you live to tell the tale."

They stare it him, then at each other, the fire, the red, covering their eyes, and they run.

"Cowards." The priest's closed fists mutter.

"_Please!_" Adrian finally makes his move, and his father can tell he's trying to temper his own rage, "We can _talk_ about this! Like people! Not one sent us, hell or otherwise! The only thing that sent us here was _you!_ Your ignorance, your lunacy! My mother is not a witch! And we are not devils! Just because she had a few beakers and flasks in her house doesn't mean she's a witch. And just because my father has a nasty temper"—he gave Dracula a reproving look—"doesn't mean we're demons. If you just let her go we will leave in peace!"

The bishop turns to what's left of the crowd, which now consists of mostly his own followers, no longer waiting for another to act, for the mayor too is nowhere to be found. "Let a pack of rabid mongrels go wild, he says." He pauses. "What do you say to that?"

"Put them down!" Someone shouts.

The others cry in agreement.

If only they knew how much _they_ looked like mongrels.

The priest gives that gnarled old smile.

"Well fuck you too," Adrian mutters as they return to Lisa's side, and his parents, for once, don't scold him for his foul language.

He's about to raise his voice again when Lisa breathes,

"It's okay, Son…they don't know what they're doing…"

He stares at her, his mouth slightly open.

No, that can't be what she's saying. She can't be telling him to give up. He can't go home with _well, you tried_. He blinks at her, then at his father, and he looks so much like he did when he was a child confronted with a difficult choice that he wants to scoop him up and tell him everything's going to be okay.

"Yes, I'm inclined to agree with you. Let's put them down, shall we?" the priest's mouth is even fouler, and it's as if he thinks he's a war commander, not a man who is supposed to sit in quiet places and pray.

Someone comes up the steps behind Alucard, and his floating sword is at his throat before the man even raises his own. "I think we can all agree backing away would be best, yes?"

When one of them touches Dracula's arm his hand burns. Another comes up behind the first and Dracula wraps his hand around his throat with barely a change in expression.

_"Stop!"_ Lisa cries. "Don't hurt them!"

He stares her way like he's a dog with something in his mouth he's not supposed to. His arm shakes, ever so slightly, caught between two instincts; follow her voice, and kill those who dared hurt her.

"I know it's cruel, and it's not your fault, and I wish there was another way too, but you have to _let me go_. I don't want you killing anyone else!"

His grip tightens on the man's throat, and Dracula doesn't even notice how much the man is grappling at him, trying to scratch his skin, to get him to release him. "If you think I'm letting you go, after everything we've been through—"

Something slams into his back, not enough to make him fall over, but enough to cause him to drop the man, who gasps for air pitifully on the ground. The vampire king whirls around to face his attacker and once again sees his son rubbing his shoulder.

He doesn't have time to demand why he stopped him, for he must block a priest's sword—"That's a funny weapon for a priest to be carrying." he quips aloud—the blade not even piercing his skin. Then he reaches over and grabs his teammate by the collar, sending him flying into a wall nearby before returning to the first, twisting the man's arm, breaking it.

"Vlad, _please_!"

One of the holy men pick up a rather large rock, resorting to the other method the church is known for using to judge women of ill-repute.

If Dracula had seen it, he would have been able to stop it.

But it was Alucard who saw it, and the only method he had of stopping it was getting in its way.

"Son!" Dracula teleports catching his wounded son before he hit the ground, his head falling against his father's shoulder.

_What is a man?_

Even the cruelest of animals only kill out of instinct. They don't hit children because they want to send their mothers to hell.

"Vlad! Take Adrian and _go_!"

The vampire king looks from the two patches of light in his life, then to the humans who want to snuff them out.

How could he ever choose them over her? How could he ever choose the dark over the light?

"You won't be able to save us both!"

She's right…it will be difficult to protect them both…impossible without killing or hurting the humans.

So he has a choice; kill, or otherwise harm, most, if not all, the humans here, desecrating his wife's wishes in order to save her life. Or let his wife die for the sake of these—these—these…

_What is a man?_

Mongrels? Demons? Blood to be spilled? Maybe.

Someone comes at him, sword raised, and he throws Adrian high into the air, knocking the man down the steps, catching his son before he hits the ground.

"Vlad…please…" her voice is weak but her eyes are strong.

_What is a man?_

He looks into the twisted faces of these creatures, rushing at him with consecrated blades and blasphemous gaze.

A thing she loves.

That is what they are. No matter what else they are, dogs, ghouls, and hellish things, men, woman, children…she loves humanity. From the day he met her it was clear just how much she cared for them; enough that she wanted to dedicate her own brief existence to saving their equally short, worthless lives. Enough she wanted to remind him how they were capable of more than the pitchforks and the flames, that there was flavor in more than just their blood. Enough that she made him promise to live like his life was as short as hers, and every moment counted.

His time with her was short…But that doesn't mean that time, that her life was worthless. That every second he spent with her wasn't a little pocket of eternity.

…And he's not going to throw away everything she worked for for a few human lives.

He flickers to an alleyway some distance away and sets Adrian down against the wall.

Then he returns, fixes his gaze on the pyre, attempting to wipe the blood off his lips before floating up beside her, out of the clutches of the flames and the fools.

"Vlad…" she tries to look at him out of the corner of her eye, question, reproach there.

He wants to run his hand along her cheek, but his fingers are covered in blood, and he dares not mar her pristine features.

"I said—" Lisa chokes out.

He kisses her hair, and cuts her ropes with one swipe of his claw, catching her before she falls into the fire like a dip in this dance.

"I heard you."

He sets her down at the wall beside Adrian—gently as if she were a precious vase he ought not break. His son's eyes blink open, (being the son of Dracula had its perks).

"Father…?" he asks, his voice so small, glancing then at his mother.

He bends down and kisses Adrian on the forehead as if trying to make a booboo feel better.

"Did I ever tell you what a wonderful young man you've become?" he's about to reach his hand to his cheek but thinks better of the blood. "You've… grown so much since I last saw you."

"What—?"

Next to Lisa, "Did I ever tell you you're as beautiful as the sun on the morning dew?"

"What tavern did you steal that line from?" she coughs, trying to smile.

"Do you have the strength to get out of here?"

They glance at each other.

"What are you going to do?"

Vlad stands up, lets the wind pass them by. "The sun will be up before long."

"Vlad…I told you—!"

He shakes his head ever so slightly.

Her brow furrows, then upon realizing, her eyes widen.

"But you…no…you _can't_!"

It takes Alucard a second, his expression going through a similar metamorphosis. "Wha—Father, you—?! Don't be a hero!"

"Better than being the villain, don't you think?"

Adrian grits his teeth.

"As long as I know you two are alright, it will all have been worth it."

"But…you're _Dracula_!" Lisa coughs again, standing shakily, holding on to Adrian for support, "You can't possibly think my life is worth—!"

"If you think the immortal existence of Dracula is worth more to the world than the mortal life of Lisa and then I suggest you do more research, Doctor." He smiles wryly.

They stare his way, that fire now twinkling monstrous and wild in their eyes too, their mouths opening and closing, pleas dying on their tongues.

He glances at the shadows of the oncoming attackers on the walls.

He pulls them into a hug, squeezing them tighter than he ever has.

"_I love you both so very much,_" he whispers into their ears, trying not to let red tears stain their perfect images.

And before they can reply he shoves them back with all the strength he can muster, giving them the best chance of escape he can.

He takes one last look at them, his sun-struck secret, as the sound of holy footsteps rush to him like water.

_What is a man?_

He turns to the distorted faces of those who will drive stakes, and forks, and blades, and flames into him, and just might succeed if he can't hurt them in return, all rage and hate and mindless obedience. Twisted, ugly little devils.

But they have families somewhere. Parents. Children. Wives of their own. They have their reasons, their gods, their demons, hidden beneath their skin. Draining their blood won't show you what they're made of, not really.

But they forget. They forget that others are the same. That our faces, that our actions, our words today, never show all our yesterdays, the value of leaving us to our tomorrows.

_"Have at me."_ He mutters sardonically.

He stares up at the moon, the fury of red fading to tranquil blue, blood into water, heresy into holy.

He thinks of his wife and son—who were classified information to the rest of the world—returning safely to his castle tonight, sitting together beneath a blanket before the tame fire.

And that is enough.

_What is a man?_

He gives a crooked little smile, thinking of himself; looking at him, you'd never know that a loving husband and father was behind those bloody fangs.

_A miserable little pile of secrets._


End file.
